


The Color of Interest

by earlgreypearl



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Tension, canon-typical elias being a creep, not sexual tension- just good old fashioned complicated tension, strained emotions, uncomfortable tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreypearl/pseuds/earlgreypearl
Summary: If Elias Bouchard were a color, he would be the color of an iceberg.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonathan Sims, Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 12
Kudos: 103





	1. Iceberg Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose this is something between a ship-fic and a character study gone too far- nonetheless I hope you enjoy it. (No proofreading, we die like men.)

If Elias Bouchard were a color, he would be the color of an iceberg. A pale, diluted shade of blue that feels empty and cold to look at, but with a sharpness underneath that holds you like the flash of winter sunlight on a clean silver blade. A color that sits in front of your eyes and makes you feel as if you have been awake for far too long, that causes them to prickle and ache. A color that slowly sinks into your bones, giving them a deep set bath in arctic water. A color that is unassuming, yet unyielding. There is nothing about Elias’s outward physical appearance that would reflect this color, not even his eyes. His eyes are the dark grey of storm clouds and wet pavement, a visual oxymoron of dull and piercing at the same time. Despite this, the color sits comfortably within the crispness of his demeanor all the same.

Jonathan Sims hates that shade of blue. He feels that lately, he is seeing far too much of it, even when the color is nowhere to be found in his surroundings. Perhaps he is not seeing it, so much as Seeing it. The archives are filled with olive greens, browns, greys, and the dull orange glow of old desk lamps late into the night. But any room that Elias Bouchard is in is washed into the feeling of a watery blue that seeps from his smile and reaches out until the whole space is underwater. Elias usually keeps the color confined to his office, but occasionally he’ll venture down to the archives and the dull muddled earth tones that Jon has come to be so familiar with will sharpen and crack. Jon has had to visit Elias’s office more and more often anyway, so he supposes that he wouldn’t have been able to avoid it all together.

Maybe if Elias actually answered any of his questions, he could cut the number of those office visits down by a considerable amount.

Jonathan Sims thinks this bitterly over and over again as he marches down to Elias’s office. Again. With another question. That will definitely go unanswered. However, he needs this information, and every second that ticks by is a second wasted. So a failed attempt at getting a straight answer out of Elias is better than no attempt, since at least making an attempt garners a sliver of a chance of success. Besides, Elias _has_ been encouraging him to hone and strengthen his compulsions- perhaps he could…

He entertains the thought just as he reaches Elias’s office door, knocking twice, sharply. Well, more like banging twice. Knocking would be touch too gentle a word for the irritation he puts behind the action.

“Come in, Jon. And no, I don’t think you can compel an answer out of me this time,” comes the even voice from behind the door.

_ Dammit. _

Swinging the door open without any preamble, Jon ducks into the room grumbling. “If you’re going to read my mind, then I’m guessing I don’t even have to voice my question aloud to you?” 

Elias stares at him for a moment from across the room, sifting for the query, and Jon can feel the ice blue settle like an egg cracked over the top of his head. “Ah,” Elias says after a beat, “I see. Well, I can pick out a few more statements for you and-”

“Why can’t you just _tell_ me?” Jon growls, taking a step forward and skipping directly past any faux workplace politeness. This is the fourth time this week he has been handed statements as a vague roundabout to direct answers, and quite frankly, he is not in the mood to sit in front of a corkboard with red string and throw theories at the wall until something sticks. Elias takes a moment to work past the compulsion that Jon unintentionally laced into his voice before smiling in response to his glower. The smile has no teeth- it is instead a sick, pitying smile that a parent would make at a child experiencing a mild irritation for the first time, and Jon sees pale blue cut in his laugh lines. “Jon, you very well _know_ the answer to that by now. The job of the Archivist is to w-”  
  
“Watch and experience, I know that! And by leaving a paper trail of statements back to my office, you want me to sit back down at my desk and read until my eyes fall out and I miraculously know all the secrets of the universe! But there is no _time_ , Elias, to sit back and turn myself into an encyclopedia! I have to stop the Unknowing, and there’s no time to prepare properly- at least not with the absolute _nothing_ you’re giving me! People are going to get hurt, and be in danger, a- and Tim and Martin and Basi-”

“You care about them too much.” Elias raises one eyebrow slightly, cutting him off and looking unimpressed. 

“And you don’t care about them at all, evidently!” Jon snaps

“But I care about you, Jon.”

The blue is swirling around Jon’s chest, coiling in a motion that mirrors a slow, cold, twist in his gut. It feels like a pair of hands reaching into his torso and molding his insides methodically like cool clay, and he can feel a thought pulled to the forefront of his mind unbidden, before he can stop it. He knows Elias is going to see it.

_ I wish you didn’t. _

The corner of Elias’s mouth twitches upwards, almost imperceptibly. Almost. 

There is a silence that rings loudly in the space between where Jon stands in the middle of the room and where Elias’s desk sits. And then, like hitting a sheet of ice over a freezing lake with a pick, Elias cracks it.

“How is your hand, Jon?”

Jon reflexively looks down at his bandaged hand, still healing from Jude’s burn. It is not as bad is it had been in weeks prior, but it is still sore and blistered, and occasionally he would forget that it was still tender and cause himself a great deal of pain by absentmindedly putting pressure on it. In fact, he hadn’t even realized that his fists were clenched currently until he’d looked down. His hands had been so filled with the feeling of static that he hadn’t noticed the aching protest of his burn, but now that his attention was on it, the pain washed up to his brain in a wave. It is a sharp red in the middle of a room of cold crystal.

He grimaces. Elias notices.

“Come here, Jon.” The tone is casual, but Jon feels it sharp in the same way that Daisy held a knife against his throat. He does not move.

“Let me see.”

“You can do that well enough from over there with your omniscience, I reckon,” Jon says sourly, still not moving.

“Jon.” Elias’s voice lowers slightly, and his name comes out with more of a demand than a suggestion.

At this, Jon takes half a step backwards, towards the door.   
  
“Let me help.”

Jon stops. And moves forward. 

The walk across the room to Elias’s desk seems painfully slow, as if he were walking on the ocean floor, the pressure of tons and tons of water bearing down on him. He feels things moving around him from the inside, pulling at him in all different directions like currents. _Fear._ The man sends a chill down Jon’s spine, makes him break out into a cold sweat. He prefers feeling frustrated, making himself angry at Elias to block out the underlying cold that remains when he thinks alone for too long. _Guilt._ Elias would never offer help to anyone else in the archives, Jon knows he’s been singled out. _Self-hatred._ Giving in, he feels horrible and weak. He should have just turned around. Turned around and walked out the door. He shouldn’t even be entertaining Elias’s demands in any capacity. Shouldn’t shouldn’t shouldn’t. _Curiosity._ The dire need to know why Elias now feels the need to help him with anything, especially after refusing to answer his question. All of his questions. For weeks. He’d never helped him before. Although, Elias never said who he was helping. Maybe Elias is only planning to help himself. 

If this last thought has any merit, Jon does not have time to be anxious about it, as he has just bumped into the front of Elias’s desk. 

Jon blinks a couple times, his thoughts dissipating as Elias moves- moves his arm and holds out a hand, palm up towards the ceiling, towards Jon, his elbow resting on the desk. Jon furrows his brow faintly and looks at Elias, knowing the contact with those dark grey irises will make the skin at the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably the instant it happens. Elias’s head is cocked slightly to the side, a half smile quirked on his lips and his expression amused and expectant as he watches Jon struggle to pull himself out of his own thoughts and confusion. “Let me see,” Elias repeats again, the fingers on his outstretched hand twitching into a subtle beckon.

It takes a couple tries for Jon to pull his bandaged arm up, as if his subconscious is actively trying to sabotage his decision. Gingerly, he places the back of his wrapped hand in Elias’s open palm, as if he were sticking it into a bear trap- which, he muses, it might as well be. Elias’s hand does not move, however. At least, the hand underneath Jon’s does not. Elias’s other hand reaches out and skims the surface of the wrappings, seemingly looking for something. It finds what it was searching for- the tapering end of a bandage up around Jon’s wrist- and Elias tugs. The bandage loosens. He begins to unwind it, and Jon’s hand jerks backwards the tiniest amount, a gut reaction to fold inwards against the body it is attached to and back towards safety. Elias does not grip his hand or react in any way to this, other than to glance up briefly at him, too quick for Jon to read any definable emotion on his face. He looks away from Elias and focuses intently on the clock sitting on Elias’s desk as the man continues to unwrap his hand.

It is a small desk clock, with a gold face set into an elegantly carved rectangular piece of wood. The bandages fall away completely. The back of Jon’s hand is now resting bare in Elias’s palm. Elias’s hand feels cool and smooth, in comparison to his own feverishly hot hand, slightly damp with sweat- the result of wearing bandages for an excessive amount of time. The wood grain of the clock is stained a rich, warm, reddish brown- it might be mahogany. There are simple, curving cuts in it that make up a simple pattern that could possibly mimic an art nouveau style. Jon feels something land on his palm and begin to move in patterns. It takes him a moment to realize that Elias is tracing the divots and whorls of his scarred flesh. Gently, smoothly, unceasing, Elias’s hand is moving over his own and that same hand feels like it has been plunged into a tank of water at temperatures below zero. Jon cannot feel his own hand, it has gone numb save for acute feeling of Elias’s invisible drawings sinking into his bone. The second hand of the clock moves too slowly and heavily to be made of such a thin sheet of metal. Every second that passes drops a weighted sound into the otherwise silent office air.

_ Tick. Tick. Tick. _

The ice blue is suffocating. It has built in waves that are now cresting the ceiling. It presses in around Jon’s chest and he finds that he does not know how to breathe. His skin and bones seem too small for him, too tight, and he wants desperately to be allowed to crumple in on himself. He doesn’t think he can though, he doesn’t even have the space or the energy to do that. Besides, Elias’s hands on his own carry a weight, a solidity that traps him and holds him completely still, an unspoken threat that hangs in case Jon decides to move. 

_ Tick. _

_ Tick. _

_ Tick. _

Jon pulls his eyes away from the clock in a slow ripping glance. Elias is staring at his hand in what at first seems to be an impassive but attentive expression, but the longer Jon stares in turn, the more he notices a somewhat hungry shadow in Elias’s pupils. There are other things hiding beneath the man’s skin- a subtle note of pride in his brow, a hint of excitement in the corner of his mouth, and something that Jon would almost endeavor to call fondness at the corners of his eyes. The combination is unsettling, and just as Jon thinks this Elias looks directly at him and smiles. This smile is _all_ teeth, and an involuntary shudder shoots down Jon’s spine and causes his arm to shake slightly.

“My apologies Jon. It was not my intention to hurt you, ” Elias says, glancing down in reference to the tender scar, as if it was pain that had caused Jon a full body shiver. “No- it, uh, wasn’t that you uh- I’m just not feeling too well,” Jon manages to stutter out just before Elias takes his free hand and covers Jon’s own burned one completely. Jon can almost see the light blue seeping into his scar and moving sluggishly up his arm like poison, his hand now stuck in a lightly constricting snare.

“Scars can be quite fascinating, and this one is particularly stunning, Jon- forgive me if I pored over it a bit too long-”

“Shut up Elias.” Jon felt himself snap back to a righter state of mind at the ridiculous statement. At the words, he remembers the feeling of Jude’s grip, the feeling of his skin melting and warping like candle wax, the panic as he tugged his hand frantically and she did not let go. 

Fascinating. Stunning. _Horrible._

Leave it to Elias to say something so utterly stupid that it forces him back into reality. “You said you wanted to help- well? Are you going to?” Jon mutters, giving the hand in Elias’s grasp an experimental tug in an attempt to get it back.

The tug was underestimated. His hand stays put in Elias’s unchanging hold, and Elias chuckles softly. Blue bleeds with the sound from the corners of his mouth. “Jon, are you aware that I put ice packs in the break room freezer for you?” 

Jon opens his mouth indignantly, ready to argue, but breaks off halfway through. “I- what?”

“The pain distracts you from your work at times. I figured your productivity and progress might be increased if I provided a relief from it.”

“Ice packs.”

Elias smirks, amused. “I can show you where they are, if you’d like. I trust you know where the break room is? Although I can’t say I’d be surprised if you didn’t- you do tend to hole yourself up exclusively in your offi-”

“I _know_ where the break room is, you don’t have to show me,” Jon snaps, finally yanking his hand away from Elias’s in an irritated swipe, and then immediately wincing. Elias raises his eyebrows at him, smiles, and stands, smoothing the front of his suit jacket as he does so. “I said I know where the-” Jon begins sharply, but is cut off. “I heard you. I could use a break from paperwork, however, and I do so rarely visit the archives. A walk around the place is in due order,” Elias says calmly, walking around his desk and out towards the door, completely ignoring a disgruntled and dumbstruck Jon still standing stock still in the middle of his office. Reaching the door and opening it, Elias looks back at him, and beckons him to follow with a nod of his head in the direction of the hallway.

“Come, Jon.”

Jon can’t pretend that’s not the direction he was going to head back in anyway.

* * *

Jon watches the ice blue crackle out in front of them as he follows Elias down the dimly lit hallways towards the archives. It moves with them in a shifting circle, akin to the way light falls around a person holding a candle in the dark, craning to look past where the glowing halo ends and the unknown begins. Jon is tempted to hang back, get himself out of range of that cold color- but every time he falls out of step, Elias flicks his eyes to the side, a silent tug on an invisible leash.  _ Keep up, Jon _ . 

Jon can’t tell if those last words are his own thoughts or not. He jams his unscarred hand deep into his pocket and hunches a little more in his stride, mentally glaring at Elias’s back as hard as he can. He knows that Elias can See him doing this, but he doesn’t care.

There’s a few minutes of brittle silence broken by soft footsteps, and then they round a corner into the archive break room. Elias crosses the room in a few paces, heading directly for the small freezer. Jon trails behind, watching hesitantly from the doorway as Elias retrieves a small blue plastic box- a lunchbox ice pack. He turns back to Jon, and for a moment Jon thinks he might be about to order him to come closer. But Elias bridges the gap back across the room himself, stepping a pace too close into Jon’s personal space.

Jon is hit with a wave of adrenaline- a rush of static numbness to the head, a mix of icy lava shooting through his veins, and every muscle tensing slightly- as Elias grasps his hand once more, pulling it up between them, and places the ice pack into it. Jon is hyper-aware of all of Elias’s small details at this proximity, and he really wishes he wasn’t. As Elias silently takes some of the bandage on his hand to re-wrap it around the ice pack, Jon can see the texture of his suit, the small flecks of grey dust on his silken tie. He can smell the faint scent of a cologne, sharp and ever so slightly sweet. He can feel Elias’s eyes focusing on his face instead of his injured hand, where they should be, and he has decided pointedly not to look at them. 

“There-” says Elias, finally, tucking the end of the bandage back into a wrapped portion at Jon’s wrist, “- you should be able to focus on reading and organizing my suggested statements for the rest of the day… or whatever related research you decide you need to pursue instead.” Elias knows that Jon is likely not going to stick to the recommended statements until his quest for answers has turned up something. Jon knows that Elias knows this, and this knowledge plucks at a string of irritation in the back of his brain. Still, he would very much like to get back to his work- but Elias is still standing in front of him, an inch too close for his liking, supporting his bandaged and iced arm with a hand under his own and his fingers circling Jon’s thin wrist.

He meets Elias’s eyes. The world is ice blue. Washed out, too bright, too close, too sharp, too cold, too blue. Jon wouldn’t want to live a life in that color. He wouldn’t want to die in that color. He has already let too much of that color into his line of vision as it is.

“Thank you, Elias,” he says quietly, trying to keep the edge of raw, scared tension out of his voice and failing soundly.

Elias lets go.

“Of course, Jon- anything for my Archivist,” he says, smiling in a way that makes Jon want to hurtle into the tunnels to escape from it. Instead Jon just stands there and feels his face burn. Elias gives him a firm pat on the shoulder, still smiling primly, and moves to step around him. “Anything except for straight answers,” Jon cannot resist from grumbling as Elias moves past him and out the break room door. He hears a chuckle echo down the archive hallway, and flinches at a clear, cutting reply that he was not expecting, gradually getting father away with each soft tap of a footstep.

“Then I suppose you have a long night ahead of you… _good luck._ ”

When the footsteps fade entirely, Jon suddenly feels as if he had been entirely held up by marionette strings, and that they had all just been swiftly cut. He slumps into one of the soft armchairs in the room, and as he looks at the ice pack fastened to his hand with bandages, he realizes that he is shaking. Now that all the tension has drained out of him so quickly, he feels empty and tired.

He supposes he has a long night ahead of him indeed. Maybe staying awake amid the browns and greys and greens of his office will stop him from seeing blue every time he closes his eyes.


	2. Sepia Brown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see the world from Elias's perspective, concerning sleep deprivation and an abrasive shade of brown.

If Jonathan Sims were a color, he would be the color of a well worn bookshelf. Rough grain and a deep walnut stain, with a few pale marks where the books had sat snugly for several years. A color that dripped like slightly-too-hot black coffee, that scuffed across your eyes in a slightly abrasive manner and left a warm reddish burn in its wake. A color that was coarse, yet comfortable, as if it were your favorite somewhat itchy sweater. The very color of Jonathan Sims’ eyes. Jon’s color hugs his physical form well, surrounding him from the inside out.

Elias Bouchard has grown rather fond of that shade of brown, and although he sees it all the time, he never seems to tire of it. He seeks it out, watches it roam about the archives during the day as it reads statements and stays up too late and takes a smoke break or two or three. Sometimes he watches it struggle, watches it fight and run and bleed. How fascinating that color has become to him, riddled with holes and swirled with scars like a fine marbled paper. Elias can hardly wait until that paper is completely filled. Jon is doing so well, he’s almost ready. Ready for what, exactly, Elias will not tell until him- at least, not until it is already well underway with little chance of reversal. But he knows that Jon will continue to stagger forward anyway, exactly in the direction he is supposed to. Walking with perfect vision although he is currently blind.

Elias silently congratulates himself on picking the perfect Archivist.

Well, perfect to a fault. Remarkably, the thing that is most likely to get Jon killed is his work ethic, rather than any irritated avatar that decides to toy with him. The man is driving himself to the grave- not eating, not sleeping, and not tending properly to his own wounds. Eventually, Elias will want him on death’s door- but only on the threshold, not crossing over it. At the rate Jon is going, he is going to run full tilt into it, and Elias cannot allow for that. At least not yet.

Currently, Jon’s body has decided for him that he needs rest in order to survive, and he is sitting slumped in his darkened office, head in his arms on the desk, fast asleep. Elias doesn’t need to use any supernatural vision to see this, as he is staring at Jon directly from the doorway to his office. 

Earlier that evening, Elias had just finished listening to a rather unnerving discovery tucked into the brown tape that spooled quietly in one of Gertrude’s old plastic cassettes. He tapped it softly on the desk a couple times after ejecting it from the tape recorder, and paused to think for a few minutes, chin resting on the back of his hand. _No, best not to let Jon get ahold of this one_ , he decided, tossing it casually into the box beside his chair, where it clacked loudly a few times as it settled among the rest of the remnant recordings of Gertrude’s work. Jon’s reckless and desperate pursuit of information was part of his charm, part of what made him a perfect candidate for this position; but he was just reckless enough that if Elias wasn’t careful, Jon could end up with his hands on the one piece of information that could debilitate Elias’s plan quite soundly. At least with Gertrude’s tapes up here, he could control the flow of general information Jon consumed and placate the fierce anxiety of the man with the knowledge that they were Gertrude’s. He could keep him linked steadily to the Eye with statements he knew Jon would read because of their source, and the contents of which would give Jon enough leads to keep his trust in them strung along- although those leads would be few and far between. As long as Elias kept that specific tape in his sight, there would be no reason for Jon to stray from the path he was walking so wonderfully.

That is, assuming this tape was the only evidence remaining of what Elias was attempting to subtly conceal.

Shit.

Elias sighed, bringing a hand to his face and pinching the bridge of his nose in a frustrated gesture. It was already eight o’clock, he had stayed later to ensure no employees would walk in on his off-the-clock research and quiet musings. Quite frankly, he did not have any wish to stay at the institute for an indefinite amount of time, rummaging the dusty archives for some other hint that Gertrude might have left in her wake. 

But, the alternative was Jon finding it _for_ him. This thought was enough to propel him to a standing position, and send him walking briskly across his office, out the door, and straight for the archives, the soft tap of his polished shoes echoing across the institute’s floors. 

The archives were dark by now. Evidently all of its employees had fled as soon as the workday allowed them to. Elias amused himself for a brief moment by picturing Tim, Melanie, Martin, and Basira rushing out in a full sprint, slamming the doors to the archives open and into the institute’s wall in their hurry. A smile twitched at his lips. A scenario unlikely to be re-created in reality, but even if it was… they would never be able to outrun their ties. The threads would snap them back, inevitably, to where they belonged. Here, at the warm heart of it all. And even if they could run, they couldn’t hide. Not from the Eye.

Elias’s pace had slowed now that he’d arrived at his destination, with no other occupants of the institute in sight. He huffed a quick sigh, pausing in the hallway and preparing to flick the light switch, when his eyes fell on the floor and he stopped. 

He had been wrong. The archives were… almost dark. The exception to the rule was a thin, soft, golden-brown bar of light that shone out weakly from under a door- the door of the Archivist’s office. Surely… surely Jon wasn’t working at this hour? On a Friday? 

That was an idiotic question. Elias didn’t even have to use his Sight to know that of course Jon was still here and working at this hour on a Friday, answering his own query seconds after he had posited it. 

Of course, if Jon was here, his little mission would have to be abandoned entirely- but he could always check up on how Jon was progressing in his research while he was here. No use wasting a short trip.

Slowly lowering his hand from the light switch, Elias moved towards the door, with an easy and practiced kind of deliberate caution of someone who Knew where every creaky floorboard was, and was purposefully not stepping on them. His shoes, which had tapped so distinctly on the way down, were now silent. In fact, the entire archives were silent- there was no noise at all coming from inside Jon’s office, Elias now realized. Perhaps Jon was merely filing away misplaced statements at the end of the day, rather than reading one. 

Elias rapped his knuckles twice on the door. A pause. No answer.

Hm.

Gently circling his hand around the doorknob, Elias noticed that the door wasn’t even fully shut- he didn’t even have to turn it, just a small push and the door creaked open slowly.

And now, in the present, Elias is standing in the doorway to Jon’s office, looking at the man himself slumped over his desk, head in his arms, fast asleep, illuminated only by the amber glow of an old failing desk lamp.

Elias sighs. 

He supposes this is what he gets for picking someone who is so remarkably eager to learn and yet so remarkably bullheaded at refusing to take care of himself. He certainly can’t chastise Jon for sleeping on-the-clock, since he himself is here at the institute after hours. He would _like_ to chastise Jon for waiting this long to sleep at all, but he knows that would likely only drive Jon further to the brink of sleep deprivation, given the recent general animosities towards any suggestion he makes.

Elias can’t very well just leave him here. Well he _could_ , but he isn’t going to. While _Jon_ is technically the safest here at the institute, Jon’s _back_ will suffer greatly if he sleeps for any great length here in this position, stuck between the hard back of the chair and the surface of the desk. The Archivist already collects a great deal of muscle pain that he will no doubt continue to refuse to take care of, and any additional pain will likely make him nearly unbearable to work with. Elias would normally enjoy watching a little archival drama from afar, but tensions have been stretched too thin lately, and there are bigger things looming on the horizon that he would rather spend energy preparing for.

The Head of the Magnus Institute steps into the room, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly as a wave of brown settles around him like a soft blanket being pulled over his head. The air in the archives is dusty and stale, but here it is warmer- heated by a single non-energy efficient bulb working too hard in its socket. The lightbulb warms the hues of brown that appear drifting lazily from Jonathan Sims, curling into the air and looking like the scent of warm drink steaming from a well worn mug. The color is hushed and affects Elias with an air of contentment, so far from the usual dark splintering walnut hue that usually tightens suffocatingly around Jon when Elias enters his field of vision. _That_ color feels like sharp points of wood sticking under the skin; _this_ one feels like coming out of a bitter January freeze into a warm house, into a home. It is the same base color, but the shifted hue makes all the difference.

Elias allows himself a smile, something softer than he would usually permit to cross his countenance. He _should_ prefer the fear, that is what he wants in Jon, after all- but there is something about this peace, this vulnerability, that makes him pause and consider. Fear is good, oh yes, but to step into this quiet space without notice or recoil from its inhabitant? Perhaps he can see the appeal of Peter’s silent and invisible method of roaming after all.

As he muses, he steps closer, coming up behind the deeply sleeping Archivist and standing at the back of the chair. With closer proximity comes the easier reach into Jon’s subconscious, and as he sees the man’s brow furrow in his sleep and his muscles tense, Elias allows himself the indulgence of slipping into his head, smoothly as ducking below the roll of a rising wave. He finds himself floating in a dark, nebulous space that seems to give the impression of a set area, yet simultaneously stretches on for an indeterminable distance. He looks down and there is Jon, already having spun the wheel of selected terrors stored in his brain and having landed on a twisting, spiralling staircase. He watches the Archivist climb, watches his mind bend and twist around him, watches a man who is barely there always out of reach, a few paces before him on the stairs. The Archivist knows he has been climbing for too long, he knows the staircase has changed directions too many times to be correct, but still he climbs, the echoes of a nursery rhyme rolling around his skull and down the banister.

Elias smiles, closes his eyes and opens them again, surfacing in his body, looking down at Jon once more- but this time back in his office. As delightful as this is, it’s about time that Jon opened his eyes as well.

He takes two steps, sidling up to Jon’s right. Half of Jon’s face is buried in his sleeves, and the half that is visible looks so much more youthful in rest, as if he had gained ten years of time back.

Elias knocks on the desk, twice. “Jon.”

Nothing. 

Elias knocks on the desk two more times, a little bit harder. “Jon?”

The man in question responds this time, but only by muttering something unintelligible and burying his face deeper into the crook of his crossed arms. Oh dear.

Elias huffs softly, making a small concentrated _hmm_ sound. Then, after a pause, he reaches out and gently brushes a hand through the Archivist’s hair. It's clear that it has been cut messily, with a pair of blunt scissors from the kitchen perhaps, but it’s soft and clean. He Knows that Jon has been showering an awful lot these days, itching to get the feel of lotion and crawling things out from under his skin. Elias runs his hand back and forth through the sleep ruffled mess a couple more times, expecting some kind of consciousness beginning to form, but Jon barely stirs.

Good grief, he’ll have to do this the hard way.

Rolling his eyes at no one in particular, Elias moves his hand from Jon’s head to rest flat-palmed at the top of his back, right in-between the sharp bones of his shoulder blades. He clears his throat quietly- although it is quite a useless thing to do as this particular endeavor will require no use of vocal cords whatsoever. 

Taking a sharp inhale, and as firmly as possible, Elias projects the loudest thought he can directly into Jonathan Sims’ head.

The effect is nearly instantaneous. Jon’s head snaps up violently and is coupled with an alarmed cry. If Elias’s hand had not been in-between Jon’s back and the chair, his full body start would no doubt have given him a few more bruises to contend with. Elias sighs, and with that, Jonathan Sims realizes exactly who it was that woke him. 

“Elias-! I-” He watches the generalized shock of being abruptly awoken swirl frantically into a completely different kind of panic, one that sifts the incoherent and loudly clanging alarm bells in Jon’s head into fragments of discernible thought that Elias easily peruses as they pass through Jon’s mind.

_...fell asleep- no, wait- yes- awake now- Elias HERE- Elias woke m- hand on my back- Elias was here BEFORE I was awake- he could- he could- he could have killed me in my sleep and I wouldn’t have woken up..._

At the last one, Elias presses his lips into a thin line to keep himself from laughing. Jon is breathing hard, slowly coming down off the shock of being wrenched out of what was likely the deepest sleep he’d had in a very long time. His eyes are on Elias, and Elias can feel the shards of the old familiar sepia brown he is used to pricking his skin. He keeps his hand on Jon’s back, moving it to rub in small circles and he can feel every muscle tense and shrink in on itself. Jon is looking at him like a cornered cat looks at an over-enthusiastic and rapidly approaching child as he says, “Jon. You need to go home. You pushed yourself until your body didn’t give you any other choice but to collapse, and you cannot stop the unknowing if you’re dead to the world in your office.”

Jon scoffs, a bit of indignance starting to creep into his demeanor despite the shock, “Right. Like you give a damn about my wellbeing in any capacity. I thought you would be _thrilled_ that I’m ‘pushing myself,’ I’m doing all the research for the things you _refuse_ to t-” He cuts himself off as Elias’s hand leaves his back and takes a firm grip on his shoulder. Elias watches as Jon’s eyes flick to the hand on his shoulder and then nervously move to meet his gaze.

“You’re being insufferable, Jonathan.” Elias tightens his grip on Jon’s shoulder, just enough to be uncomfortable, just enough to get the point across. Jon gulps. “I, for one, don’t want to have to deal with you in this state- and I’m sure that however much your coworkers dislike me, they would agree with me this once that they would rather not wish to work alongside you like this either.”

Jon stares at him for a moment in silence, several emotions running blatantly across his face at the same time- a messy conflict of fear, surprise, and anger.

“This is not a choice Jon. Go home,” Elias adds with finality and a shake of his shoulder, before the Archivist can have the chance to drag this out with his stubbornness. 

“I… fine,” Jon concedes finally, his posture crumbling slightly under the weight of lingering tiredness and the pressure from Elias’s hand. He moves slowly to stand, and Elias loosens his grip enough that the Archivist is able to bat his arm away. The guarded movements are back, every turn involuntarily punctuated with a small twitch as if he were ready to flee at a moment’s notice. 

For a brief second, Elias thinks he might prefer it if Jon were back asleep, curled up on the break room couch perhaps, no tightness in his joints or expression, and no fear of a hand on his back. It’s almost sad to see him like this. 

Almost.

“Wh- where’s my-”

“Coat?” Elias finishes, plucking a worn grey jacket off of a pile of statement boxes on the floor and holding it up towards Jon.

Jon frowns. “Yes, that.” He grabs for it, and Elias primly pulls it back, opening it wide in the same gesture. He raises an eyebrow pointedly at Jon and clears his throat.

“Wh-? Oh.” Jon first looks confused, then disgruntled- but he begrudgingly turns around and allows Elias to help him slip his arms into the sleeves. He tugs the jacket into place, sharply shrugging off Elias’s hands as he tries to smooth out the shoulders.

“Right. I’m leaving. Satisfied?” Jon grumbles.

“I’ll be satisfied when I see you out the Institute’s front doors and into a cab,” Elias replies calmly, watching Jon heft a laptop bag onto his shoulder and stumble into the doorframe as a result of the effort. “And at this rate, you won’t even get that far.” He meets Jon at the door and loops an arm snugly around his shoulders, pulling him forward and feeling Jon’s wobbly center of balance lean into him.

“Elias- I- I’m fine,” Jon protests through a tight jaw, but Elias Knows better. As they move through the Institute’s hallways, he is supporting a good half of Jon’s weight and he has a feeling that if he were not pulling Jon in a forward direction, he would be collapsed against a wall. He does not respond to Jon’s tired objection, completely ignoring that he’s said anything at all while they walk to the doors.

They finally step out the front doors into the cool evening air, the night sky hanging over Chelsea in a periwinkle blue. The lights in the buildings dot the street like soft stars, and Elias guides Jon down the front steps to the street, arm still locked over his shoulders. When they reach the bottom, he uses that arm combined with his own weight to pull the both of them into a sitting position on the second to last stair, Jon making a small indignant squawk as he does so.

“There will be a cab driving by in approximately eight minutes,” Elias announces matter of factly, “I suggest you get in it.”

Jon exhales a sharp breath of air through his nose, and one could almost endeavor to call it a laugh. “Fuck you,” he says quietly, and there’s an edge there- but some kind of dark humor underneath.

Elias turns his head and looks at him. He sees Jonathan Sims, spine bowed into a tired and permanent curve, head hung low towards the pavement, purposefully not looking at him. His thoughts are whirling with worry for those he cares for, anxiety about things that have passed and things yet to come, a particular aversion and irritation with Elias, and a beautiful, insatiable curiosity. And still Jon leans against him, too exhausted to attempt one more escape, simply weathering one more small storm. _He looks terrible,_ Elias thinks. _And lovely._

They sit together. For approximately eight minutes at least.

Elias checks his watch just as a set of headlights makes its way down the street. He stands up crisply, brushing imaginary dirt off of his pants and straightening his suit jacket before raising one arm in a small signal out towards the street. The cab slows, and he turns and extends a hand to Jon, still sitting on the stair. Jon lets out that same derisive huff of air before jerking himself to his feet on his own, a few rather crass words running through his head at the same time- most of them addressed at Elias. “Very well,” Elias says, slipping the hand into his pants pocket and stepping forward to open the door to the cab, which is now at a standstill in front of them. “I trust you can take it from here,” he continues, as Jon steps forward, still with an edge of caution, towards the open car door. As he makes a move to duck in, however, Elias stops him with a hand on his chest, covering the collarbone and the space above his heart.

“Good night, Jon. Do try to take better care of yourself- one night’s proper sleep won’t be the end of the world.” 

He smiles, and he can feel Jon shiver.

Elias steps back as Jon collapses in the car without another word, watching placidly as the door clunks shut and the taillights move swiftly away down the street. He looks up at the rich blue sky, slowly darkening, and sighs- something weary, contented, and with a touch of mournfulness. Then, after a moment or two of quiet, he turns and walks back up the stairs of the Magnus Institute, to collect the rest of his things and bring them home.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The biggest challenge for this chapter was trying to write from the perspective of a character who is so used to casual invasions of privacy that stepping over boundaries is practically second nature. (Please do not ask me to write from Elias's perspective again, I creeped myself out.) Enjoy!


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